snowball

B2 Topic:General Vocabulary

US /ˈsnoʊbɔl/ UK /ˈsnəʊbɔːl/ See IPA manual

Freq #15851

Meanings

1

noun
A ball of snow pressed together in your hands, often thrown for fun.

The kids threw snowballs at each other in the park.
2

verb
To grow quickly and get bigger or more serious, often out of control.

A small disagreement snowballed into a major argument.

Verb forms

Verb forms are not available for this word yet.

Thesaurus

Word family

Forms snowballedsnowballingsnowballs

Derived forms snowballersnowballing

Etymology

From Middle English snoweball, snoweballe, snaweballe, snayballe, equivalent to snow + ball. Cognate with Scots snawbaw, German Schneeball, Luxembourgish Schnéiball, Dutch sneeuwbal, Afrikaans sneeubal, Limburgish snieëbal, West Frisian sniebal, Saterland Frisian Sneebaal, Sneebal, Swedish snöboll, Elfdalian sniųoboll, Danish snebold, Norwegian Bokmål snøball, Norwegian Nynorsk snøball and Icelandic snjóbolti.

snoweball Middle English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

General Vocabulary

External links

# snowball

**Type:** Word
**Level:** B2
**Part of speech:** noun, verb
**IPA (US):** /ˈsnoʊbɔl/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈsnəʊbɔːl/
**Frequency rank:** 15851

## Meanings
1. A ball of snow pressed together in your hands, often thrown for fun.
2. To grow quickly and get bigger or more serious, often out of control.

## Examples
- The kids threw snowballs at each other in the park.
- A small disagreement snowballed into a major argument.

## Derived Forms
- snowballer
- snowballing

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: snoweball

## Etymology
From Middle English snoweball, snoweballe, snaweballe, snayballe, equivalent to snow + ball. Cognate with Scots snawbaw, German Schneeball, Luxembourgish Schnéiball, Dutch sneeuwbal, Afrikaans sneeubal, Limburgish snieëbal, West Frisian sniebal, Saterland Frisian Sneebaal, Sneebal, Swedish snöboll, Elfdalian sniųoboll, Danish snebold, Norwegian Bokmål snøball, Norwegian Nynorsk snøball and Icelandic snjóbolti.

## AI Etymology
Snowball is from Middle English snoweball, snoweballe, snaweballe, snayballe, equivalent to snow + ball. Cognate with Scots snawbaw, German Schneeball, Luxembourgish Schnéiball, Dutch sneeuwbal, Afrikaans sneeubal, Limburgish snieëbal, West Frisian sniebal, Saterland Frisian Sneebaal, Sneebal, Swedish snöboll, Elfdalian sniųoboll, Danish snebold, Norwegian Bokmål snøball, Norwegian Nynorsk snøball and Icelandic snjóbolti. Important forms in the word's history include Middle English snoweball. In current use it includes senses such as A ball of snow pressed together in your hands, often thrown for fun and To grow quickly and get bigger or more serious, often out of control.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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